Walker’s Wisconsin Senate Majority in Peril as Thousands Work for Recalls

By Tim Jones -
Mar 15, 2011

The chanting has ended, protesters
have quit marching around the Capitol, and a quieter struggle is
under way to deny Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker the Senate
Republican majority he used to curb public-sector union rights.

A record number of recall efforts have been started
against 16 members of the Wisconsin Senate, both Republicans as
well as Democrats who left the state to stall Walker’s bill
curbing collective bargaining. A net loss of three Republican
seats means Democrats would control the chamber, 17-16.

The state’s recalls, enabled by Internet social networking,
reflect a polarized national mood, said Joshua Spivak, a senior
fellow at the Hugh L. Carey Institute for Government Reform at
Wagner College. Across the U.S., fights over ousting elected
officials are reaching unprecedented proportions, he said.
Today, residents of Miami-Dade County will decide the fate of
Mayor Carlos Alvarez in the largest such municipal vote in
history, Spivak said.

Wisconsin is part and parcel of a larger expansion of
recall,” Spivak said in a telephone interview from New York.
“There’s a broad technological revolution driving this, making
it easier to collect signatures and money to put these on the
ballot.”

Jim Mileham, 67, walked the streets of suburban Milwaukee
on March 12 as a crowd police estimated to be as large as
100,000 protested at Madison’s Capitol Square. Mileham, a
retired French professor at the University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee, knocked on doors in his neighborhood seeking
signatures to oust veteran Republican Senator Alberta Darling.

Shoe-Leather Effort

“I don’t like to see a lot of recalls, but Walker didn’t
declare his intentions to do this before the election,” said
Mileham. “They’re going out of their way to hurt working-class
people.”

Darling did not respond to a telephone call and e-mail
seeking comment on the recall campaign.

Since 1913, Spivak said, 13 state lawmakers nationwide have
been recalled from office, and 20 ouster efforts have been
placed on ballots in five states. Sixteen simultaneous campaigns
in one state -- against eight Republicans and eight Democrats --
are unheard of, he said.

Eighteen states allow the recall of state legislators,
Spivak said. Eight of the 13 legislative recalls have occurred
since 1983, he said.

Omaha Escape

In 2003, Gray Davis became the second governor in U.S.
history to be recalled, when California voters turned him out.
In Nebraska, opponents of Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle forced a recall
election on Jan. 26. Suttle survived by a vote of 51 percent to
49 percent.

The most recent successful recalls of state lawmakers
occurred in Wisconsin. Senator Gary George, a Democrat, was
recalled in 2003 after his conviction on corruption charges. And
in 1996, Republican Senator George Petak was bounced after he
cast the deciding vote on a tax increase.

The current recall campaigns against Senate Democrats are
aimed at eight of 14 members who fled in February to prevent a
vote on the collective-bargaining bill.

The committee trying to oust Democratic Senator Jim Holperin said in papers filed with the state’s Government
Accountability Board that Holperin is “not representing
taxpayers.” The group has until April 25 to turn in 15,960
signatures.

Fight for Life

The target of a recall in Wisconsin must have held office
at least a year, according to state law. Recall proponents are
required to collect signatures representing 25 percent of the
vote for governor in their district, within 60 days.

Signature efforts against the eight Republican senators are
rooted in protests over their support for the collective
bargaining curbs on public workers.

“But it’s too easy to read into the size of the crowds
that these Republican legislators will be swept out of office,”
Franklin said in a telephone interview from Madison. “I don’t
think we can easily translate the protests into electoral
strength in recalls.”

Fast on Facebook

In 10 hours of canvassing, Mileham said he collected 36
signatures. He was one of nearly 1,000 volunteers trying to
gather 20,343 names in 60 days to put Darling’s recall on the
ballot, said Kristopher Rowe, a respiratory therapist who
launched the drive March 2.

Rowe floated the recall idea on his Facebook Web page in
late February, he said in an interview at the campaign’s
Shorewood headquarters. Hundreds of people initially responded.
Now there are more than 4,300 supporters on the social network,
Rowe said. The Internet has made it easier to stay in contact,
he said.

Recall efforts were underway at the March 12 rally in
Madison. A table set up by “We Are Wisconsin,” a group to
recall Walker created amid the nearly four weeks of protests,
drew 20,000 people from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. alone, said Ben Young,
a 29-year-old volunteer from Madison. Because Walker, who took
office Jan. 3, can’t be recalled yet, people signed up only to
receive information.